


Cingulomania

by lisachan



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23243347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisachan/pseuds/lisachan
Summary: (Post-series) John Silver waits sitting on a cliff.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw & John Silver, Madi/John Silver
Kudos: 17
Collections: COW-T - the Clash Of the Writing Titans





	Cingulomania

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished watching Black Sails and it was the most amazing experience - and the series finale left me SPENT and broken. I'm planning something huge for these two because I can't BEAR that they ended like they did in the show - but I can't put myself to write it right now, as it is a pretty long & ambitious project I wouldn't have the time to pursue these days. So, for now, let's settle for this!
> 
> Written for this year's COWT #10, W6, M2, prompt: "Cingulomania (English): a strong desire to hug someone".

Like every day, he’s sitting on the cliff, watching out to the sea. It’s a sunny day, but he’s been here under the rain, too. He’s been here with the winds, with the quiet and with the noise. He’s been here when there were no sails on the horizon and when there were many.

He’s been here. And mostly he’s been here alone.

They come visit him, of course they do, now and then, all of them, even the unexpected ones. Max comes when she’s not busy. Rackham comes, for reasons John can’t even begin to grasp. They both come and sit by him, and they speak. They talk about Nassau. About the things they’re building, there and on the sea. Rackham’s having all the fun he might have possibly hoped to have, sailing the seas with that ridiculous black banner he had made. Skull and swords, yes. He finds it most entertaining. He’s adventurous in his tales, he’s enticing. Very good a storyteller – and John should know, being him at the same time the tale and the teller of his own legend.

Max is more practical. She’s been begging him to come back to Nassau – of course she would, John knew it would happen. Not that she needs the help – she doesn’t. She just still believes, for whatever reason, that alone out here he could still become a threat again. That something could stir his soul again, forcing him to move. Move against the little empire she’s been building on that God-forsaken island. Move against the established order as it is now, an order she fought to design, struggled to institute and bleeds to maintain, every day.

As if he cared for that. For poor little Nassau and her righteous, present commercial life. Max wants him under her heel to control him, to make sure he’s not going to hurt her in any way, but she shouldn’t fret. He isn’t going to become dangerous anytime soon – if ever again.

Other people come, every now and then, inconsequential people. Curious passing by to ask him about his life and adventures. About sailing and the treasures he found, about the war that almost came to be but ultimately never was. Others search for something different – they search for the great and terrifying Long John Silver, they come with propositions, with half a crew already formed, only waiting for a Captain.

They find a silent man with only one leg and no will whatsoever to remember or to try again. They come, they leave.

John sits on the cliff and he just waits. Most of the time, he waits for Madi.

She hasn’t come ‘round forgiving him, yet. Understandable – John understands it. She believed in the war, in the cause, more than he ever believed in it. To him, fighting that war was always a reaction. Revenge. Backlash after having been pushed around. A response to someone else’s rhetoric. She believed in it truly, instead, she felt for its reasons, she stood by them. She wanted to make a change, she wanted to _be_ that change. Years under her mother’s guidance taught her how to protect her people, yes, but also how to fight for them. And oh, she wanted that fight. She craved that bloodshed.

And she would’ve died for it, multiple times. Had she had more than one life to spare, she’d have sacrificed them all.

John doesn’t regret what he did. Doesn’t regret losing her over it. He’s still waiting for her comeback, though – he must believe she’ll come to him, somehow, at some point. He can wait – patience and time are all he’s got. He likes living here, the gates of the village are always open for him, he built himself a nice shack, near to the cliff, and he doesn’t lack a thing.

He waits for Madi – most of the time – and it feels fine.

Some other days, he waits for someone else, though. Someone who, apparently, today chose to be here.

“Do you ever think about it?”

Flint is standing behind him. He’s close, but not too close. Not close enough that John can feel him, anyway.

He had been told about his comeback. He knows he settled somewhere. He knows Thomas Hamilton is with him. That’s how much he knows about him – he refused to question anyone for more. He figured Flint would find him, eventually, if he wanted, and by then John would have figured out if he wanted to know more about him and, in case, he would’ve asked.

He finds out now he hasn’t been able to figure out anything, in the time that’s passed. He doesn’t know if he’s going to ask about the few things he’s most curious about – or anything else, for that matter.

“About what?” he asks, eyes fixed on the sea, “About what I did? What I lost? The war we never got to fight?”

Flint scoffs half a laughter, walking closer. John can hear his boots dive into the sand and then start scraping against the rocks as he gets nearer to the cliff. When he’s close enough, finally he can feel him. His smell, which hasn’t changed, wild and invasive. His warmth, intense as though there was a furnace constantly burning inside him.

“About sailing,” Flint says. He’s sitting next to him and they aren’t touching, but he feels too close anyway. “I wonder about it, sometimes. Where would we be. If we would have taken the sea again at all.”

“You’d have wanted me in your crew again?” John arches an eyebrow and turns to look at him, eyes full of doubt. 

“Always,” Flint answers. He speaks so honestly it’s almost uncomfortable.

John averts his eyes before it gets too much. “Despite what I did? The way I betrayed you?”

“I said it was repairable, and I meant it,” Flint retorts, “Everything I ever said to you, I meant it.”

“Now, don’t insult me,” it’s John’s turn to scoff, “You don’t even know if we’d have ever wanted to sail again. If you would’ve. I think you wouldn’t-- as proven by the fact that you didn’t. I believed back then, and I still believe now, that you needed Thomas Hamilton, not the sea, to live a full, fulfilling life.”

“And yet here I am.”

John holds his breath for a second. That’s an argument he struggles to adverse.

“Yet here you are,” he concedes, turning back towards him, “Care to explain me why?”

Flint’s lips curl at the angles in an amused smile. “I actually came to ask for a favor.”

John frowns. “If this is about another mad plan of yours, I will--”

“I would like for you to call me by my name.”

John sits there, speechless, for more than a moment. Among the many different things he could’ve thought this man would’ve asked of him, this didn’t even make the cut. It wasn’t even an option to begin with. “Your name?” he asks, “Which one?”

“The one you always knew me by,” Flint answers. Then his smile softens, and he looks down, even though only for a moment. “Thomas doesn’t call me by that name. Ever. He makes a point out of it – and I understand it. And I wouldn’t want him to call me any other name. James McGraw is the man he knew. It’s the man I am when I’m with him. And most of the time, you’re right, I’m fine with it. But damn, do I miss the captain, sometimes.”

John swallows as his eyes lean on Flint’s smile. It almost looks apologizing, as much as any expression on the face of this man can. “Captain Flint,” he says. It slips out of his mouth without him even noticing it, and as soon as the name’s been said he regrets having said it so lightheartedly. Not having savored it for a longer time.

Flint smiles again, though. He seems satisfied.

He stands up and walks away – but John holds onto his crutch and stands up too, turning around, following him with his eyes. “You came all the way here,” he says, “Traveled so far, from God knows where, only to hear your name.”

Flint stops halfway down the hill. He breathes in and out and then turns around, looking at him. “It’s not just the name,” he says, “It’s who said it.”

He walks off without another word. John’s left there with a weird itch in his hands – a feeling he had almost forgotten. The desire to just run after him, fetch him, hold him, hold him hard, a feeling that always accompanied, in his past, the sight of Flint leaving.

“Will you be back again?” he asks to the wind.

He receives no answer.


End file.
